Story of my Challenge submission - "Finally Relief"

[radar]

Hi,

thought I would also give a bit of background on my submission. We were away for the weekend up the coast in a small farming area called Hannam Vale. It is just north of Taree. Beautiful dairy country, lots of cows

Overview of the valley, sorry not taken from an helicopter


It's nice rolling hills all around.



As we were walking along the road, the cows were coming home.



I went and had a chat with the farmer to see if I could take some photos as he was doing the milking. Coming from Canada, it was very different operation, open barn, cows lined up, etc. The farmer was actually on his own. He has 200 cows to milk, twice a day, 5000 litres of milk per day!

This one was pretty nice with the blur of the farmer. He does have to move all the time. Twenty cows on each side, twenty get milked at a time, while the other 20 are munching on some oats.



Here is the farmer in a close-up, this was the submission to the challenge. I liked the concentration on his face. I entittled it "Finally, relief" as when you see their udder, it is very full, on avg, 10 to 14 litres of milk.



The shooting conditions were a challenge for my skills. It was pretty low light and I had to restrict using much flash, so as to not spook the cows. Pictures taken with my D70s and the kit lens. I didn't have my 50mm 1.4 lens at the time, it would have been useful in this environment. Note that I didn't do much PP on the images above other then some cropping. I´m sure colours can be improved and I'll do it later on when I've got a bit of spare time.

It was a great experience for me. I probably would not have gone to take those shots if it wasn't for the challenge, so it got me out of my comfort zone. Having grown up in a dairy farming area of Canada, it added some more interest.

So here it is.

Cheers,

Radar

[Killakoala]

Another interesting story on the 'Challenge.'

Thanks for sharing

[stubbsy]

Thanks Andre

I'm finding these stories behind the photo almost as interesting as the photos themselves.

[the foto fanatic]

Interesting pix Andre.

Do Aussie dairy farmers do it differently to Canadians?

[embi]

Geez mate...why didnt you enter the shot of the blurred farmer....thats $#@^ awesome

[radar]

Hi embi,

Geez mate...why didnt you enter the shot of the blurred farmer....thats $#@^ awesome

thanks, I liked that one too, but I didn't feel that it was a "Decisive Moment"

Do Aussie dairy farmers do it differently to Canadians?

Very different in terms of the barn. The milking systems are similar, but in Canada, the dairy cows are kept indoors for the whole winter, so the barn is quite large. Here they just rotate them through the milking station, in one end out the other. In Canada, each cow has their spot, in summer, they come to the barn and get to the same spot every time. In winter, they stay there the whole time.

As to the farmers themselves, if they do it different then the Canadians, I didn't ask him that question

Cheers,

Radar